Gamedev is nothing different in that regard.
Even if you look up Unity jobs in C#, there are plenty of those, but they all require you to also have experience with native mobile app development (both iOS and Android), experience with 3D modelling AND spriting, experience with multiple webdev frameworks, and experience in server deployment.
Like if this would have been the task of a C# scripter in Unity...
@ryo I've never even touched Unity. I use MonoGame which is an open-source implementation of XNA.
There might be some C++ jobs at AAA companies, but apart from C++ and Unity (and maybe Unreal), I really doubt there's much else when it comes to available gamedev jobs.
Especially given how new Godot still is, it might take a couple years before we start seeing any demand for that one.
@ryo I honestly don't want a gamedev job, especially with how the current game industry is (language/engine/framework choices aside).
The establishment is pretty much dead, yes.
Though I do have a bit of experience with Nintendo Switch game development (though never released anything yet), and Nintendo is basically what PlayStation used to be, while PlayStation is basically what Nintendo used to be.
So Nintendo Switch is perhaps the only console left worth developing for (and also the only console worth buying anyway).
@ryo
>So Nintendo Switch is perhaps the only console left worth developing for
You can still develop homebrew games for older consoles. There are tons of libraries for them. But consoles are pretty much dead to me. Yeah, there's Nintendo but I don't expect them to be worth supporting much longer, and you still have to follow and agree to their licensing agreements just to get your games on their.
I honestly think there is nothing wrong with staying PC-exclusive. If you can't game on PC then I don't know what to tell you. This isn't the 90s anymore where you have to configure a bunch of shit just to get your game working properly. Every computer has an HDMI port and every gamepad uses either USB or Bluetooth so you can easily play PC games console-style and we have handheld gaming PCs like the GPD Win and the Steamdeck for portable gamers, so I don't want to hear any excuses about "muh authentic experience".
And you don't need the latest hardware to have a good time. I still have a blast gaming on a toaster even if it means lowering the settings. This especially shouldn't be a concern when it comes to indie games.
> The Xbox one series is also the top selling game console
Really?
Here in Japan the entire Xbox line has always been pretty much irrelevant.
You might find 1 strip of a select few games at Yodobashi Camera squeezed inbetween a massive CensorStation and even more massive Nintendo sections.
Any smaller game retailers don't even try to sell any Xbox or its games at all.
https://www.xbox.com/en-US/developers/creators-program
@PhenomX6 @ryo @luithe Does Microsoft not care about indies anymore? They were the first to embrace it all the way back in the Xbox 360 era with XBLA and XNA. But they killed the XNA framework nearly a decade ago and turned a blind eye to their indie program on Xbox One like you said.
Now, the Switch seems to be the most indie friendly console. Which is ironic because Nintendo was pretty indie unfriendly during the 7th-gen (WiiWare had a 10MB limit and there was that Bob's Game fiasco).
https://www.eurogamer.net/microsoft-no-longer-charges-developers-to-patch-their-xbox-360-games
Then the Xbox One announcement trashfire presumably delayed the devkit plans as Microsoft was gaining a reputation of being bad to work with for indies.
Meanwhile Sony and Nintendo have indies both because of nostalgia (Nintendo and "I always wanted to make a NINTENDO game :D" come to mind but Sony has a lot too) and Sony's positive rep in the PS3/PS4/Vita era. Namely, the Vita indie scene said they would have kept developing for the platform had Sony still allowed devs to push games to the store. It had a post-Commodore era Amiga vibe to the scene.
https://www.kotaku.com.au/2020/04/indie-developers-are-keeping-the-playstation-vita-alive/
https://www.engadget.com/2015-12-24-sony-versus-evil-banner-saga-vita-port.html
https://www.kotaku.com.au/2021/07/rumour-ps-vita-store-will-release-no-new-games-after-july-20/
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2021-10-25-the-developers-that-supported-the-playstation-vita-until-the-very-end
Devs are also willing to let Sony/Nintendo get a free pass because of nostalgia and the longtime desire to want to make a game for their system, something the Xbox isn't old enough to have especially as it lacked the same loyal brand evangelists.
It's just the Indie program on the Xbox One just "exists". It's like a random store in the mall. There's no real developer Discords for it, the UWP Discord doesn't discuss the Xbox much, and most talk about the Xbox One dev mode is about running RetroArch on it.
Though I'm not sure it's solely Microsoft's fault here, it's also the fact there are a lot more people buying Xboxes to game on them, than there are people buying Xboxes to code on them. It's the same problem most console homebrew scenes have, at best they end up solely being emulator boxes and at worst get used for piracy/game cheating.
@PhenomX6 @ryo @luithe Sony has always been somewhat indie friendly even going back to the PS1 with their Net Yeroze consumer devkit and Sony was friendly towards homebrew developers with an official Linux distro for the PS2.
Nintendo, on the other hand seemed out right hostile towards indies up until the later years of the Wii U because they were the only devs keeping the system afloat besides Ubisoft and Nintendo themselves. WiiWare in particular had a 10MB file size limit (mostly due to the limited space on the Wii's NAND) and a huge chunk of the games on there were literally ports of popular flash games. Super Meat Boy was planned to be a WiiWare exclusive but they couldn't get the game under that filesize limit so it got ported to everything else.
Nintendo and Soyny both didn't give a fuck about indies during the Wii/DS/PS3/PSP era, but if you got on their platform and got their ultra expensive devkits, they still let you self-publish at least.
They will only deny your submission if they find breaking bugs during their test play, but then they just tell you to fix it, and then resubmit (which by itself is quite a painful process).
The most painful part in my experience publishing DSi and 3DS games was preparing a user manual.
Not a problem if you have a team behind you, but pretty exhausting if you're all alone.
But besides the Switch, I too play only PC games and retro games.
No mobile games, every single mobile "game" is either a puzzle game littered with ads, or a LOYVE SURVICE which they can deprive you from access by shutting down servers after some time, or the ones they released back in 2008~2010 that are just unplayable due to having buttons ON the screen, having fingers covering much of the action, and on top of that being hard to press too.
@ryo You also have to pay to get the ESRB, CERO, PEGI, etc to review and rate your game, and I just don't want to pay the extra fee for that. Video game, movie, TV, etc ratings are bullshit. Just slap a "parental advisory" warning if your game has mature content.
Nintendo also asked to remove a Ruby interpreter easter egg in one game despite the fact that the interpreter in question was sandboxed and thus poses no security risks. I find that bullshit because a lot of games have hidden Unix terminals, BASIC interpreters, etc as easter eggs.
> You also have to pay to get the ESRB, CERO, PEGI, etc to review and rate your game
No longer the case for digital-only games.
> Nintendo also asked to remove a Ruby interpreter easter egg in one game despite the fact that the interpreter in question was sandboxed and thus poses no security risks.
Yea, I agree that was pretty bullshit.
@ryo
The Xbox one series is also the top selling game console with a low barrier of entry, as in you can develop games yourself for it.
It's just Microsoft has done a poor job of marketing it to people.